scrambled eggs

dancing with change amidst worry, pivoting & pirouetting.

My dream is to live by a large body of water, endless sea stretched out in front of me as I look out my kitchen window. I’ll live amidst the mountains, still summers watching lakes, harsh winters my breath merging with stream flows. A slower pace of life, away from the city, not too far, but away enough that the city feels like an adventure from another lifetime every time I visit. I’ll own a coffee shop, another small business venture that sticks – a space that’s a local staple, where people are ~regulars~, they’re eating food that doesn’t hurt their tummies or makes them think twice about consuming something that could harm them. A place free of self-sabotage for the sake of pleasure. I’ll start my days writing morning pages in the backyard looking at a view 8-year old me glimpsed as the computer booted up to play games on Miniclip. Coffee set on the stone ground as I scrape the night’s thoughts from my mind; and I’ll rise, leaving the cup on the kitchen counter, venturing outdoors to move my legs around my neighbourhood, to hear the birdsong and meditate – a moment of peace before the usual heaviness sets in. And maybe my kids will join me, maybe my best friends that visit every three months will too, maybe my partner if they feel like it, maybe a stranger I met at the cinema the night before where we mumbled our disappointment in the ending of the film; either way, I’d have felt the outside on my skin, the wind on my face, the tiredness in my legs as I trust myself to put one foot in front of the other, a testament to moving forward, where my teens and twenties felt like my legs were constantly buried in sand struggled. One foot, one foot, one foot, then the other.

Then I’ll make scrambled eggs, a smoothie, or if I’m feeling grounded enough savoury oats with seaweed, miso and sweetcorn, or if I want to start my day with the sweetness of life I’ll grab a cookie for breakfast from the jar I baked the night before – it’ll depend on how much I love eggs that morning. If I’m not suddenly grossed out by my sudden consciousness of the animal products that I consume, I’ll watch the eggs as they cook on the stove, stirring in circles ‘til the yolks mix with the whites. Maybe as they intertwine I’ll remember today, sitting outside in the garden at my parent’s place, mid-twenties, simultaneously stressed about life yet relaxed in knowing things will fall into place but the type-a personality in her, the enneagram 4, feels that it should all be happening now, that she’s the only person in the world who’s felt this way, ever, even though, realistically, she knows this is but a phase. Life has felt heavy for her, and the pride I feel for her taking steps in the dark to forge a life she feels deeply aligned to, in fear, worry, sadness, she still put one foot in front of the other. I bow at her strength to move - one foot, one foot, the other, one foot.

Maybe I’ll chuckle remembering watching a bird shit into the blue flowers by the fence as she wrote her pages that same morning, an emotional hangover waking up at 10.30 am on a Sunday in May, carrying through with the promises she struggles to keep to herself, having fallen asleep in snot and tears at 2am, soothing herself to bed with a romantasy book her best friend recommended. She was sad, but she was brave and I no longer have to remember the sadness held in that time, where the memories are now held with the peace sewn into the mundanity, she learned to cultivate balance in the dread and tears. Where everything felt impossibly hard, too much, circles and cycles formed, knowing that to be stuck means change must happen, but the resistance and the fight to stay as is feels easier, safer, than the uncomfortability of becoming something new that she didn’t know. Worry sat in her throat, pollen up her nose, sunglasses on to see the computer screen as the shade comes and goes, the sun shining through the clouds on a spring day that felt like a summer’s day in London, music a friend recommending a month ago in her ears; oh to be free – one foot, the other, one foot, one foot.

As I pour eggs onto plates, I’ll watch the birds soar the mountains remembering my mum talking about each trees as we drove to the grocery store that same day, she went on about their beauty in withstanding, in being nothing but themselves, different shades of green yet minding their own business and nurturing themselves within an eco-system, cared for, seen and loved by themselves and others. They are, as they are, as nature is, as we worried about the baby foxes in our garden not being able to find food whilst we attempt to persuade them to leave, their mother carrying a dead bird in her mouth the next day to feed them – how we watch nature adapt, the seasons change, the inconsistency of life, yet we strife and struggle in worry when change arises. Faces puffed, sweat dripping from pits that nothing will work out, anxiety making room and taking up space – yet, as I watch the eggs move from pan to plate, the deep chuckle in my chest will rise and slip through my mouth into a deep sigh. In deep knowing that things will fall into place.

One foot, the other, one foot, the other, one foot, the other, one foot, the other, one foot, the other.